Never tease a sleeping dog

We have all seen at least once in our lives, in a film or in person or in a photo, the classic red letterboxes of the English post office; they are an icon like the red telephone booth can be. These postboxes were introduced in England in the mid-19th century during the reign of Queen Victoria. Each of these red mailboxes prominently displayed the initials of the monarch of the time, so the first ones had the initials VR (Victoria Reign). With the succession of various monarchs, the initials obviously also changed. There were then ER, Edward Rex, GR, George IV Rex George V Rex , to arrive at Elizabeth's father GVIR, George VI Rex.

The problem arose when, in 1952, Elizabeth II ascended to the throne of England after the premature death of her father. At that time, the new Inch neighborhood in Edinburgh was almost complete and, of course, a shiny new letterbox was placed in the high street in February 1953, with the initials EIIR, Elizabeth II Reigning. This was the first letterbox installed in Scotland with the new ruler's initials.

What can I say, it wasn't very welcome. Two factions of the most extremist republican factions still bore a grudge against Queen Elizabeth I who had her Scottish cousin Mary Stuart, legitimate heir to the throne of Scotland, beheaded and had never accepted Elizabeth I as their Queen. 36 hours after installation, the box was defaced with tar to signify the lack of respect for a ruler who had taken the name of a Queen so hated by all Scots. Protests followed, attempts to uproot the box with a sledgehammer and finally blow it up with a rudimentary bomb on February 12, 1953. The culprits were never found.

Eventually the postbox was replaced with an older one bearing the initials of Queen Elizabeth's father King George VI, GVIR. The postbox is still there on display and no one has had anything to say about its presence anymore. Moral of the story, never tease a sleeping dog because if you wake him... he will bite.